


Love Is Blind

by Valeada



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Blindness, Getting Together, M/M, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000, audiobook reader!Gabriel, audiobooks, blind!Sam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-05
Updated: 2014-09-05
Packaged: 2018-02-16 04:34:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2256075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valeada/pseuds/Valeada
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam is a blind man who falls in love with Gabriel, and amateur audiobook reader, by listening to the man's recording of the bible.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love Is Blind

**Author's Note:**

> General Warning: I am not blind, and I don't know anyone who is. So if anyone has any criticisms around the way I wrote a blind character or any suggestions for how to improve please let me know!  
> You can also find me on my tumblr, which is gabrielsfeatherybutt.tumblr.com

It was amazing the sort of things that you could get away with by being the blind kid. In 6th grade Sam had punched a guy who was making fun of him in the face and didn't even get in trouble after it after he insisted that he'd thought the kid was further away and had asked him to demonstrate how to do an uppercut. He could wander and explore pretty much every area he wanted to, and if he was caught he would just use the excuse that he literally couldn't see the keep out signs.

 

Not that being blind was all sunshine and roses. There were a lot of questions he knew he could never answer. Did he get into Stanford because he actually deserved to, or did someone call them up with some sob story about how much being accepted would mean to the blind kid? Sam didn't give a crap about physical beauty, but it would still be nice to know first hand that he didn't look like some sort of mountain troll. He could never be sure if people did things for him, if the grades and praise he got, the friendships he had were things he had actually earner or if people just felt bad for him.

 

At least he didn't have to see people's pity as he walked past them. No, he just had to listen to it instead, from the sighs to the whispered conversations to the way that people's tone of voice would change as they talked to him, immediately changing to something condescending as if he were a five year old who had scraped his knee and couldn't do anything for himself. Yes he could climb a goddamn flight of stairs. Yes he could find the bathroom if someone gave him directions, he didn't need a tour guide.

 

 And fucking hell,  he could have sex. For some reason people immediately seemed to link disabilities to asexuality, which was so not Sam. Not that he had anything against asexuality, he just definitely didn't fit under that label in the slightest. But being both gay and blind didn't exactly set you up for a lot of luck in the dating game, so it wasn't like he exactly got a lot.

 

 But overall Sam had a pretty good, if slightly boring life. He didn't have a lot of friends, but he had what he needed. A nice house that he owned, a stable job doing consulting work online for various law firms, only going into court when he absolutely had to. (He got a little tired of the “even a blind man can see he's guilty” jokes.) He'd learned to play the piano a few years back (though sheet music was a little difficult, you couldn't sightread braille sheet music and play at the same time.) and so he hung around the house playing it, or went to museums and took audio tours, but Sam's absolute favourite thing to do was curl up on his couch with an Irish coffee and an audiobook.

 

Sam adored audiobooks. He loved stories in general and bought nearly every book in braille that he could afford, but Sam didn't make a lot of money and disability benefits were absolute crap while braille books were expensive. Not to mention the fact that it was difficult to multitask when he needed his hands free to read them. In his senior year of high school Sam had discovered the magic of audiobooks. They were perfect. He could put in an audiobook and lose himself in the story for hours without having to worry about the words blurring together or his fingertips going numb.

 

It was cheaper too, especially for older books. Those he could often get for free from websites that used volunteers to record their stories for them. It meant that the audio files weren't always the greatest quality, that he couldn't always get the beds that he wanted, and that sometimes the reader would stumble over a word or two. But in the end that didn't matter. All of the audiobooks were recorded anonymously, but as a regular listener he was able to start picking out some of the more frequent readers.

 

There was a woman who had recorded every single book written by Tolkein in their unabridged format and spoke the elvish like she was a Ñoldor herself and got strangely emotional when she read the Hobbit. There was a guy who had recorded a series of “Kid Books” (Although Sam was hesitant to call anything that including decapitation, full frontal nudity, and inter-species romance a “Kid Book”) about a sock puppet named Mr. Fizzles and his ability to read minds. But Sam's absolute favourite was the guy who had recorded the bible.

 

He had come across the file one day while he was browsing through the deepest darkest depths of the collection of audiobooks and found what seemed to be a recording of the bible. He was bored out of his mind and had nothing better to do, not to mention the fact that its page was littered with angry comments from Christians which intrigued him, so just for kicks he downloaded it, made himself a mug of green tea and sat down on his couch with his headphones on.

 

It was… not what he had expected to say the least. To be perfectly honest it was almost unbearable to listen to at first. The reader’s voice was right on the verge of being downright obnoxious. The guy was cocky, overconfident, and it wouldn’t have hurt him if he had turned down the microphone volume a little.

 

And then there was the fact that he wasn’t actually reading the bible as it was written. He would completely skip over passages with excuses that they were “As boring as a Catholic Sweet 16”, or “More outdated than bell bottom jeans.” And any time there was some rule that he found particularly stupid he would change it. (“Man shall not lie with man as he  lies with a woman, what, is that some joke about anal? I mean hello, why else is my g-spot up my ass? Nah, let’s change this to man shall not lie with man OR woman without a safeword and a fuckton of lube.”)

 

He would randomly add in figures from other religions, so that Hercules was fighting Goliath along with David, and Ganesh being extremely offended when Noah tried to force him onto the ark.

 

But there were other things too. The reader spoke about some of the events in the bible, especially things like the story of Mary, with such emotion in his voice that Sam could tell that he was smiling as he read, as if this reader knew them personally. As though Mary and Joseph and the angels especially were his friends, or even family members that he hadn’t  seen in years. Like he was reminiscing.

 

By the time the book came to an end and the computerized voice came on announcing that the audiobook was over Sam was completely hooked. He found himself laughing at his jokes, finding the little stories that he told, the way his voice moved when he talked, so expressive, so passionate, that it was actually a little endearing. He imagined what it would be like when he said other things, how the reader would say his name, what he would sound like just talking about his day, or complaining about the weather, and if the reader would ever talk about him the way he spoke when his voice got all warm and tender and if he liked dirty talk and what his voice would sound like when he came and oh shit  he was in love.

 

The realization came like a punch to the gut about a month after he first listened to the audiobook. He was walking through his kitchen, caught up in some fantasy where the reader was following around after him, his arms wrapped around Sam’s waist as he watched Sam make the tea, making snarky comments about some time where he had gone swimming with Michael Phelps in a swimming pool full of iced tea. Sam would have to argue that iced tea was not the same thing as warm tea, and he realised with a jolt that he was in love with him.

 

Sam physically had to stop what he was doing and set down the teapot, completely shaken. How was he in love with a guy that he had never even seen? Whose name he didn’t even know? He was crazy, that was it. He was batshit insane, or starved for human contact of something.

 

He was in love with the idea of the guy.  That had to be it. He had come up with some stupid picture of who this guy was and what their life could be. Maybe if he actually met him there could be something, but there was no point in pining after a guy he didn’t know the first thing about.

 

So Sam went about his life, trying as hard as  he possibly could not to think about the reader.

 

A few weeks later Sam was sitting in his favourite coffee house, sipping on a cup of rooibos. It wasn’t particularly good tea, the seats weren’t particularly comfortable, and the service was slow, but even so it was Sam’s favourite place because the baristas were just as rude to him as they were to the other customers. Sam had a book open on the table (The Great Gatsby) and was fairly absorbed in it when a voice broke through to him from across the table.

 

“Well aren’t you a sight for sore eyes. Mind if I sit here?” A man asked, clearly not very tall from where the voice came from, and Sam could practically hear his flirty  smirk.

 

“Oh wow, real smooth. And what do you say to the deaf ones?” Sam scoffed, shaking his head.

 

“Music to my ears.” He said simply, and Sam had to laugh at that.

 

But the laugh died in his throat suddenly as his cheeks heated up with realization. He knew that voice.

 

“Wait… Uh, before you go… And I know this is going to sound completely insane…” Sam began, but he was interrupted.

 

“Yes, I am as beautiful as I sound.” The man teased, and Sam rolled his eyes.

 

“Glad we’ve cleared that up. I just… You don’t happen to record audiobooks, do you?” Sam asked, biting his lower lip. The man let out a small huff of surprise.

 

“One.” He admitted, hesitation evident in his tone. Sam let out a sigh of relief.

 

“Oh thank God, I thought I was crazy for a moment there.” Sam admitted with a tentative smile. “You were that guy who recorded the audiobook of the bible, right?”

 

“Oh yeah, that was me. Jesus, I didn’t think anyone would actually have listened to that.” The man laughed, clearly embarrassed. “If you want to come after me with a torch and a pitchfork I’m afraid I’m going to have to split. Very quietly, so that you don’t know where I am.”

 

“Oh no, be as quiet as you want, I navigate by echolocation.” Sam teased, and the man let out a surprised laugh.

 

“Well shit. I guess that’s it for me then.” He chuckled, and Sam grinned.

 

“I don’t want to chase after you with a pitchfork anyways. I actually really, really enjoyed your recording. I’ve probably listened to it a hundred times.” Sam explained, feeling the weight of the lie on his tongue. He knew damn well that the count was closer to three hundred.

 

The reader whistled.

 

“Jesus, kiddo. Don’t know why you even bother with that old thing. I only really recorded it to piss my dad off.”

 

“Is he super religious or something?” Sam asked, knowing that he probably looking like a total idiot from how widely he was smiling.

 

“Understatement of the century.” The reader scoffed. “Daddy-O practically bleeds scripture. He acts like he wrote the damn bible.”

 

“Blood in the shape of letters?” Sam asked with a chuckle.

 

“Nope.” The reader said, the grin in his voice matching Sam’s. “He’s got paper in his veins. But good guess though.”

 

The two of them were silent for a moment, huge grins on both of their faces.

 

“Oh, right!” Sam said after a moment, breaking the silence. “I’m Sam, by the way.” He smiled, holding out his  hand for a shake. The man took it, giving Sam’s hand a firm squeeze and an enthusiastic  shake.

 

“Sam, huh?” He said with a smirk, not letting go of Sam’s hand. “Nice to know the name of my first groupie. The name’s Gabriel.”

 

Their hands were still joined, and Sam could feel Gabriel’s thumb stroking lazy patterns over the back of Sam’s hand, bringing more blood to Sam’s cheeks  with each movement.

“Would… Would you like to sit down?” Sam asked tentatively.

 

“Next to an Adonis like you? Hells yeah.” Gabriel grinned, immediately sliding into the seat next to Sam’s.

 

Neither of them left until the shop closed hours and hours later after drinking their way through way too many cups of coffee and tea. Both of their stomachs hurt from spending their entire day laughing at each others’ anecdotes and Gabriel’s terrible jokes that Sam repaid with equal measure. And Sam couldn’t remember a time when he had been happier.

 

And the whole “Gay blind dudes don’t get a lot of good sex” thing? Blown out of the fucking water.  Gabriel was like some sort of insatiable energizer bunny of sex, and apparently Sam had a thing for guys who literally never shut up.

 

Though Sam could never bring himself to regret falling for a guy through some stupid audiobook he did have to admit he felt a little silly about it. The Gabriel he had built in his head wasn’t real, just an imaginary friend, and falling in love with an imaginary friend could have ended dangerously. Instead the real deal turned out to be so much better. Almost biblical. And that was alright with both of them.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed it! In case it wasn't clear the first audiobook reader who read Tolkien was Charlie, and the second one who read the Mr. Fizzles audiobooks was Garth.


End file.
